


Working Heart

by GoldenClover



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:03:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenClover/pseuds/GoldenClover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merriell Shelton's heart was broken beyond repair when he got to Peleliu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Heart

Despite what the movies like to tell you, everyone has a heart, but they don’t all choose to use it. Some people, their hearts sit there and fester, waiting for their moment. And some broken hearts do get their chance, but most just rot.

Merriell Shelton’s heart was broken beyond repair when he got to Peleliu. Ripped to shreds, scattered across the desert of the Pacific. Maybe once it had worked, maybe once it had shined whole and pristine, Merriell Shelton didn’t know. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever had a working heart.

His heart had no more reason to work, he didn’t need it for anyone. Merriell Shelton lived by the soles of his boots and the clank of his helmet. A heart isn’t needed when you’ve got a government-issued pack on your back and a gun in your hands.

But sometimes, when everything was quiet and he didn’t need his gun, Merriell Shelton wondered what it was like to have a working heart. He wondered what it was like to have a heart that wanted to go home, a heart that jumped with fear when it should, a heart that still cared.

He didn’t know what it was like, but when he met Eugene Sledge, Merriell Shelton was like a man awakening from a deep sleep.

He couldn’t let another heart break.

So he latched onto the boot with the prettiest heart in the whole of the marines, and he was like a gardener. He watered the heart every day, tended to it, and he made sure the weeds kept away. Sometimes, it was a little harder than most to keep the heart pretty in such an ugly place. Jap gold glinted in the sun and blood blushed on the rocks, and Merriell had to work harder than he’d ever worked before to make sure Eugene Sledge’s heart didn’t see all that.

But some things are unavoidable.

Okinawa came and Eugene Sledge’s heart became a little broken. A few cracks hissed here and there, a little crumpled down the middle, but Merriell did his best to patch it up. He stitched it up with awkward attempts at comfort and crooked smiles, and somehow, it worked. Eugene Sledge’s heart had lost a little of its color and it was still a little creased in the sides, but it still worked, and that was all that mattered.

And somehow along the way, Merriell Shelton hadn’t realized it, but his heart had been picking up its broken pieces and jagged cracks and quietly put itself together again in a messy patchwork. When he mended Eugene’s heart, he was teaching himself how to fix his own, and the stitches were ragged and uneven, the heart was a little deflated, and some pieces were in the wrong spot, but his heart worked again.   
It worked again, and when Merriell left Eugene Sledge on the train, they both had working hearts.   
A little bit uneven, a little bit messy, but working.


End file.
